Cookie policy

Our, and third party, usage of cookies

Our and third party usage of cookies when you visit the Site falls into one of the below four categories. Below you will also find a table detailing the specific cookies used on the Site.

1. Essential cookies

We use some cookies on the Site which are essential to provide certain features of the Site to you. For example where you have an account with us, we will use a cookie to remember that you are an account holder and provide enhanced features to you.

Where you disable such cookies, these enhanced features of the Site will not be available to you as you will be unable to login to your account.

The name of the cookie that GWR uses for the Site is ‘_Auth’, and it only lasts as long as you have your browser open.

2. Performance Cookies

We, via third party platforms, uses cookies on the Site to help gather data about how visitors use the Site. We also collect and accumulate other anonymous data that helps us understand and analyse the Internet experience of our visitors. For example, we accumulate visitor data relating to referring domains, the type of browsers used, operating system software, screen resolutions, colour capabilities, plug-ins, language settings, cookie preferences, search engine keywords and JavaScript enablement. We also record number of visits, paths taken and time spent on the Site. None of this information is personally identifiable and we only share this information in the aggregate, reflecting overall web site or Internet usage trends.

Twitter will also set Google Analytics cookies when you access the site as part of the display of our Twitter feed on the Site for the same purpose as outlined above.

3. Functionality Cookies

We use these type of cookies to remember your preferences on the Site. The primary example of such usage is to allow us to remember your details where you login to your account, so you don’t have to do this each time you visit the Site.

The Site also uses various third party sites and software to display content to you. As part of this both third party sites look to set cookies. Disabling the relevant cookies will mean you are unable to access this extended functionality as expanded upon below. Where a third party uses a cookie as described below, you should note that the data collected about you is anonymous and no information is transferred that could be used to identify you.

When you login with your Facebook account to make comments on the Site, Facebook sets various cookies. As part of this Facebook will be able to identify that you have visited the Site, and may subsequently use the information to display more relevant ads to you on its own site. Certain cookies are used to set user preferences and to protect users for example by monitoring suspicious login activity, or where the user is accessing the Site from a public device.

Google’s +1 feature allows users to ‘+1’ articles and stories on the Site. Google sets a cookie to allow them to monitor the sites where you have ‘+1ed’ content, including by displaying the particular article that you have +1ed on your Google+ account.

With Twitter, information on our Twitter feed is drawn directly from Twitter’s servers, they look to place cookies on your device. These serve various purposes including allowing Twitter to identify that you have visited this site.

We also use YouTube to display certain videos on the Site. As part of this, YouTube sets various cookies to collect statistics on your viewing of YouTube videos on the Site and to remember your preferences.

You should be aware that if you have personal information associated with any of the above-mentioned accounts, the cookies used by the third parties will be associated with your account and as a result, your personal information.

Apart from abovementioned providers, we may also use other third party services providers from time to time. When you view or use them, information may also be collected by them by using Cookies or similar technologies. To learn more about the information they collect or receive, please review their privacy policy available on their websites. Here are some example links:

We and advertisers we work with use cookies to display advertisements that may be of interest to you. For example, if you have looked at a particular product on a site visited prior to visiting the Site, the provider of the product may think you are interested in the product and display an advertisement for the same product on the Site through a third party ad network. It is important to note that we do not disclose your identity to the advertiser, and such advertisers will only have access to your personal information if you decide to supply it directly to them whether through the advertisement or otherwise.